


Dancing Candle in the Clockwork

by turntechClockwork



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Gen, POV Second Person, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 01:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15207542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turntechClockwork/pseuds/turntechClockwork
Summary: "Your life was a constant dance and you were only pulling moves from a routine you practiced daily."---Dave working his way around LOHAC.





	Dancing Candle in the Clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> While listening to Candles and Clockwork for the first time, and actually hearing it, I figure there's just something about a boy whose persona is associated with remixed beats and raps, only to have a song with soft piano and violin and so much sadness in every note. I'm actually still kind of new to Homestuck, and I'm on the first intermission of Act 6. This is full of run-on sentences and is terribly not in character, I am so sorry ;w;
> 
> Here's the song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLRJYDwC0nc

The world was on fire. It should have been hectic, rushed, and you should have felt unprepared as all hell, but the truth was, there was a certain catch in your breath and pain in your heart. It sang familiarity and stung of home and swept your addled mind into relying on fight or flight instincts. You were used to this, as you always had to be. Battles every which way, drawing your sword and wiping away sweat, spinning and dodging, pulling fucking pirouettes off the handle to cover your ass, to just _stay alive,_ of course you were used to this. Your life was a constant dance and you were only pulling moves from a routine you practiced daily.

Your dance partners saved you when you had two left feet, the two records which spun time back and forth to assist you. Your hands would have starkly contrasted the dark, sleek disk if not for the dim, orange lighting washing over it all, as you ghosted deft fingers over the vinyl, maneuvering and positioning yourself securingly into other points in time. Countless other Daves hopped into and out of existence on the timeline, sometimes giving you help or at least a cool, brief nod. Of acknowledgement, but not of reassurance. They popped into place just when necessary, and you did as well. You each knew this intricate, adrenaline-fueled dance, this fucking ballet of knowing where to go, which platform to hop to, which spinning gear would support your weight. Where to go and what to do and when to do it, trusting each other because you knew you only had yourself at this point.

There was nothing but darkness above you ‘sides a circular gate, tauntingly glowing from high up above. The lava blistered and burned and scorched each and every platforms you stepped upon, but you could take the heat. You always could. You danced, stepped in time to the bubbling red glow and heated ticks, onto darkened catwalks and pieces of gearwork. It lulled into a kind of calm amongst the chaos of a hellscape.

Once, and just once, you stopped unsolicited. You don’t know why, something in that instinct to _keep moving, keep surviving,_ broke for a moment. Your heart ached for some reason, some kind of throb that meant you missed something, longed for something unknown. You took a brief respite. You looked around in the lava filled land, timetables captchalogued, sword lowered, guard down, and vulnerable as all hell. You had a gut feeling, along with another Dave’s advice, that you had to cross a certain catwalk on your right, but instead, you stopped walking and took a sudden and abrupt sit-down session.

Your legs dangled over the expanse of lava, and you swept your vision across the entire landscape. It seemed to go on forever, extending farther into the darkness than your vision could manage to track. The lava and gears and heat and clockwork, it was all so big and you felt so, so small. Just the tiniest, flickering candle in a world that was entirely on fire. The air was hot, and the world was on fire, and you were just a 13 year old trying to… Save the world? Create a new universe? Dance an impossible, absolutely, undeniably, utterly _impossible_ dance? You don’t know, you just… _don’t know._

Your tears evaporated before they fall, leaving salt stinging on your face, and you could not care less. You let yourself cry, as you’d never been allowed to. Your heart hurt, and it was because you knew you were never going to get to be a regular kid. That was just how it was going to be.

The reprieve was short-lived. You gave yourself a minute’s break tops in the ashen air, just a minute, before mentally forcing yourself to move on. You raise your shades only for a millisecond, swipe at your tears as if it were just sweat, stand like someone too old for their age and stride across the catwalk.

You hear piano, violin, something soft and soothing and sad at fate. The music doesn’t belong here, amongst the chaos, and just as quickly as it is heard, it’s nothing but a distant memory. You shake your head. Keep moving and keep surviving, just to stay alive.

And, around death, to the ticks of a clock, to the heat of the moment, to the beat of your heart, to the forgotten song of something melancholy, melodious, and utterly impossible, _you danced._


End file.
